That's a beastly schedule - especially the nights at college. Preparing lessons for the week takes time - and you are working Saturdays. I admire your efforts. My hat is off to you dks and blessing your way.

"Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home."

Hi Everyone I'm in Washington D.C. for a computer training course for work and I thought I'd type a message from here. I'm right across the street from the NPR building. Hmm. . .wonder if I can get Carl Kasell's autograph? We'll have a little time for touring, so I hope to have some pictures of D.C. up soon.

Congratulations dks, that is fantastic, and thoroughly well deserved.Those kids won't know how lucky they are.

Excellent news.

BrokenLyre wrote:That's a beastly schedule - especially the nights at college. Preparing lessons for the week takes time - and you are working Saturdays. I admire your efforts. My hat is off to you dks and blessing your way.

Thanks, Stephen! Well, we'll see how 'lucky' they are! I get to teach Keats and the other Romantics...and that makes me happy! The senior curriculum is quite fun...

Thanks, as well, BL, for the encouragement--it will be a tough schedule, but the extra money will be good and I also love teaching at the college--it's a nice respite with regard to noiselessness...

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."

Malia wrote:Hi Everyone I'm in Washington D.C. for a computer training course for work and I thought I'd type a message from here. I'm right across the street from the NPR building. Hmm. . .wonder if I can get Carl Kasell's autograph? We'll have a little time for touring, so I hope to have some pictures of D.C. up soon.

Sounds great, Miss Malia! I'd love to see your photos...

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."

Well, I'm back in Spokane and at work--jet-lagged as can be I'll get pictures up as soon as I have them. . .I left my camera at home and so had to use friends' cameras to take pictures. When they send the pics to me, I'll upload a few. I had an interesting Keats sighting in the Nation's capitol yesterday. My boss, Mark, and I visited the Library of Congress in the morning. I didn't realize how spectacular it looks on the inside--frescoes and statuary everywhere. In the information wing near the front doors, the walls are painted with frescoes in honor of lyric poetry. One wall (near a bank of television monitors, ironically) has a quote from Wordsworth amidst a beautiful fresco of women (muses?). All around the top of the walls were smaller frescoes dedicated to poets. In a row they had Tennyson, Keats, Emerson, and Wordsworth. Strange to see an American name amidst all the Brits. Anyway, I was really happy to see a fresco in honor of Keats--of all poets! It was of Endymion the shepherd. I took several pictures of it with Mark's I-phone so we'll see if one turns out enough to post. I wondered, as I walked through the library, what Keats would have thought at being honored in one of America's most celebrated libraries. I imagine he would have stood with mouth gaping, much as I did

Yes, Stephen-take lots of pics!! Sneak that camera in if you have to--I did!

Well, all. My schedule is *almost* unbearable. I teach at a Title I school--a high school with some very rough kids, to say the least. These teenagers have gone through more than I could ever fathom or imagine having gone through at such a tender age--many of them have small babies of their own, have siblings or parents who are in prison, or work to help pay for their immediate family's expenses. They are a rowdy at times and I come home whiny and spent, but every morning thus far I wake up with a dash more determination and, besides, already they melt my heart. I made my billboard 'shrine' to Keats in my classroom--not to mention all of the other various pictures of him, copies of his letters and so on I have laminated and pasted to the walls...I often launch into how I met him and whatnot--they listen and ask questions...I tell them about how he has impacted my life and how my passion for him and his work has taken me to incredible places--like the British Library where they let me handle centuries old books with kid gloves--literally! And this forum, which led me to a small, beautiful Irish town cradled by a mythic shore...They are fascinated by stories of traveling abroad--many of them aspire to do that and see the world. Many of them will also be the first in their entire families to graduate high school and go to college...it is an experience I have trouble encapsulating into words, really--this is a calling, not a career--and that's an understatement. On Monday and Wednesday nights I switch gears and trot over to the college to teach my evening classes...all of my adventures during the day at the high school make great yarns for those adults, who are weary and work-worn by the time they drag themselves to their nighttime composition course with professor K...

All I can wonder nowadays is...dear God--I hope I am doing this job right...but I can feel Keats's presence--he inspires me in every pocket of life...my fingers are itching to write--I've been so immersed in schedules that I haven't sat down to shepherd in my ideas--but it won't be too long--I feel it weedling out of me...

I am loving sharing this with you all--this forum is therapy for me! Oh, by the way--I am thinking of offering extra credit to students who take the time to go see Bright Star! My one honors class may go ahead and do it, but the others? God love 'em, you know, they barely have lunch money--hell, I barely have lunch money!

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."

Your passion for Keats and for teaching will get you through Denise I have no doubt of that.

Clearly you were born to do this, and I hope that some of your passion and warmth and love of language and poetry will rub off onto your pupils. Those kids will receive treasures from your hands that are priceless, and those are literature, language, eloquence, passion and poetry.

Keep up the good work my friend; it is inspiring just reading about what you are doing and please do keep us up date in all your travails, it does my heart good to read them.

Saturn wrote:Your passion for Keats and for teaching will get you through Denise I have no doubt of that.

Clearly you were born to do this, and I hope that some of your passion and warmth and love of language and poetry will rub off onto your pupils. Those kids will receive treasures from your hands that are priceless, and those are literature, language, eloquence, passion and poetry.

Keep up the good work my friend; it is inspiring just reading about what you are doing and please do keep us up date in all your travails, it does my heart good to read them.

You're always so kind, good man...I just hope I don't let my weariness get the best of me...send good vibes my way, would you??

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."

What an unfortunate time to be away from this forum! I've missed all the Bright Star discussion.

I thought I'd drop in and just let you all know what's been going on. I was just recently diagnosed with a rare inflammatory bowel disease that has done its darndest to take over my life. Basically, it's come to this after a lot of pretty dramatic changes in my health over the last few months and over a year's worth of tests and misdiagnosis. No, I'm not going to die or anything (though admittedly there was a lot of time in there when dwelling in the unknown that I thought I might be headed down that road), but it is extremely exhausting and making me feel pretty sick a lot of the time, so my online presence has certainly suffered, as has my presence in the real world.

Now, though, I do at least have a name to attach to a good number of my symptoms--and perhaps even an indirect cause for most of the others--so I can with any luck start to get better once I'm able to get treatment. Until then, though, I'm unfortunately in a bit of a miserable state of limbo. I am updating my LiveJournal (http://rampantwhistler.livejournal.com) and Facebook pages quite regularly (and if you're on Facebook and we're not friends yet, do send me a message!), but anything else has pretty much fallen to the wayside for awhile in favor of extra hours trying to sleep, etc.

So there you have it. I hope I'll be able to pop in a bit more often as we get nearer the MOVIE EVENT OF THE YEAR.